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CARET Legal vs Lawcus

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Our analysts compared CARET Legal vs Lawcus based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Legal Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Overview Pricing Benefits & Features Analyst Ratings Comparison Charts User Ratings Analyst Summary Screenshots
CARET Legal Software Tool
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Lawcus Software Tool
SelectHub Award Winner
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Product Basics

Analyst Rating

86 Detailed Analysis

User Sentiment

Excellent User Sentiment (345 Reviews)

Analyst Rating

83 Detailed Analysis

User Sentiment

Excellent User Sentiment (103 Reviews)
CARET Legal (formerly Zola Suite) is a cloud-based practice management solution with integrated matter management, CRM, time tracking and billing capabilities. Businesses can centralize all firm and client data, track time and expenses, and manage operating and trust accounts. It helps prepare digital invoices, run financial reports and connect legal matters with associated contacts, documents, communications and tasks to get complete visibility over active cases. The built-in legal calendar tracks important events and touchpoints in real time.

It complies with SOC 2 auditing standards and secures sensitive information via military-grade encryption and user permissions. Companies can expedite client onboarding with trigger-based workflows and intelligent forms. It integrates with third-party applications for continued scalability.
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Lawcus is an end-to-end practice management software with built-in legal case management, client intake and CRM. Streamline time and expense tracking and set up automated workflows. The legal calendar gives a holistic view of upcoming events, deadlines, hearings and tasks. Closely monitor key performance indicators, pipeline value and financial health with built-in reports and a dashboard.

Provides clients with self-service options through the secure client portal. Access best practice templates for client intake and legal documentation. Pre-fill documents with existing database information and process electronic signatures. Manage operating and trust accounts and accept online payments without added risk.
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$150/User, Monthly
Free Trial is available →
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Tailored to your specific needs
$34/User, Monthly
Free Trial is available →
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
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Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Easier Data Management: A centrally accessible data repository provides a single source of truth for all employees and team members. 
  • Prompt Customer Support: Offers multiple support options to clients with quick response times. 
  • Flexible Accounting: Provides in-house accounting tools and integration with QuickBooks. 
  • Onboarding Support: Minimize time to market with dedicated onboarding and data migration support. 
  • Better Insights and Decisions: Comprehensively diagnose the firm’s financial health, productivity, profitability and efficiency metrics with powerful built-in reports. 
  • Global Reach: The mobile app provides unrestricted access to all features, including time tracking, matter management, emails, payment portal, billing and OCR capabilities. 
  • Seamless Integration: CARET Legal seamlessly integrates with your existing systems, streamlining workflows and eliminating data silos.
  • Enhanced Efficiency: Automated processes and intuitive dashboards empower your team to work smarter, saving time and resources.
  • Improved Collaboration: Secure document sharing, real-time communication, and collaborative workspaces foster seamless teamwork.
  • Advanced Analytics: Data-driven insights provide actionable intelligence, empowering you to make informed decisions and optimize operations.
  • Exceptional Security: Industry-leading security measures protect sensitive data, ensuring compliance and safeguarding your clients' information.
  • Tailored to Your Needs: Customizable settings and flexible configurations adapt CARET Legal to the unique requirements of your practice.
  • Enhanced Client Experience: Client portals and self-service options provide transparency and empower clients to actively participate in their cases.
  • Timely Reporting: Automated reporting capabilities deliver real-time visibility into key metrics, enabling proactive decision-making.
  • Expert Support: Our dedicated team of legal experts provides ongoing support, ensuring a smooth implementation and maximizing your ROI.
  • Future-Proof Innovation: CARET Legal is continuously updated with the latest technologies and best practices, ensuring your firm remains at the forefront of legal innovation.
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  • Hassle-free Trial: Try out the platform for 14 days with anytime cancellation and no credit card details. 
  • Save Time: Avoid repeatable processes with automated workflows. 
  • Increase Cash Flow: Grow the firm’s client base extensively with dedicated lead conversion and client management tools. 
  • Remote Connection: Access important case information and client records from any device with an internet connection. 
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  • Matter Management: Use the matter dashboard to track active cases in real time. Create custom fields with check-boxes, dates, pick lists and currency and record all matter-specific activities, including time entries. Limit access to sensitive information on a per-matter basis and categorize matters based on practice area, responsible attorney, custom fields and open date. 
  • Intelligent Email: Automatically file emails to associated case files and add time entries for sent emails. The proprietary smart suggest feature locates associated contacts. Convert emails to tasks, matters and billable hours. 
  • Integrations: Supported integrations include G Suite, Exchange, Microsoft 365, RPost, Outlook, Google Calendar, NetDocuments, OneDrive, LawPay and QuickBooks. 
  • Calendar: Send ICS invites, create time entries, set private events, mark recurring events and follow up on team obligations. Set up daily, weekly or monthly schedules for report delivery. 
    • Rules-Based Calendaring: Integrate with LawToolBox to automatically track procedural, administrative and regulatory deadlines. 
    • Date Calculator: Factor in days out, federal holidays and weekends while calculating dates for templates and deadlines. 
  • Legal Contacts: Create cards and lists for various legal contacts, including clients, prospects, witnesses, opposition counsels and referral sources. Generate custom fields and categorize them based on contact role, created by and contact type. 
  • Legal Documentation: Store multiple legal documents depending on the subscription plan. Access instant preview of documents, in-document search, complete version history and file locking and tagging capabilities. Create matter-specific document folders and securely share files via the Caseway portal. 
    • Word Ribbon Plugin: Create, open and save documents directly from Microsoft Word. 
  • CRM: Filter leads by source, practice area and potential revenue and convert them to matters. Identify successful referral sources with intelligent metrics. Embed intake forms into the firm’s website. Automatically create lead entries and generate retainer agreements and standard documents.  
  • Task Management: Tag, sort, filter and create sub-tasks based on requirements. Implement standardized procedures using task templates. Delegate tasks to team members, turn on notifications and assign deadlines. 
  • Client Portal: Allow clients to exchange case-related documents via a 256-bit encrypted channel. The payment portal can process both debit and credit card transactions. Request and approve eSignatures instantly. 
  • Mobile App: Available for both Android and iOS users. Insurers can design custom logos, send and receive documents, share invoices and receive payments. Secures access via fingerprint authentication and Apple TouchID. 
  • Time and Billing: Choose from over 11 ways to create time entries. Build custom invoices with support for UTBMS codes and LEDES format. Run financial reports, develop accounts payable and trust checks, process payments and more. Manages vendor bills and supports split, consolidated and separate billing frequencies. 
    • Time Entry: Create automated time entries and assign “no charge” and “no charge don’t show” labels. Designate round-up increments and log time entries in decimals or HH:MM format. 
    • Rate Cards: Create rate cards with custom user rates. Allow clients to inherit rate cards and set matter-specific discount rates. 
    • Expenses: Automatically track all expenses. Charge soft costs and import copy activities from photocopier devices via the uniFLOW importer. 
  • Business Accounting: Earmark part of payments for expenses and to timekeepers. Set up firm-wide budgets to predict revenue on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis. Run year-end reconciliations and add time entries for individual transactions. 
    • Reports: Run built-in client, compensation, productivity, accounting, trust and vendor reports. 
  • Trust Accounting: Manage trust accounts separately. Accept payments via checks and debit and credit cards. Administrators can withdraw money from trust accounts to avoid overdrawing from operating accounts. 
    • Retainer/Trust Fund: Create retainers for trust and operating accounts and get notifications when the balance falls below the minimum. View and print ledgers and trust account summaries with sub-ledgers. Run three-way reconciliation reports. 
  • Smart Settlement: Intelligently manage settlement workflows, including percentages and memo generation for all involved parties. Create a settlement statement for every settlement memo. Capture expenses incurred by the firm, clients and third parties in a detailed value list.  
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  • Case Management: Maintain complete visibility over legal matters with a traditional list view or kanban style bird's-eye view. Identify conflicts of interest via full-text search. Organize matters and contacts via custom fields and groups. 
    • Legal Matters: Participate in matter-specific conversations and pin significant interactions for future reference. The matter timelines tool recollects all case-specific activities chronologically. Always stay in the loop with continuous updates on task assignments, client intake, messages and payments. Generate on-demand matter summaries detailing any outstanding balances, trust balances, and un-invoiced work in progress. 
    • Organization: Create custom numbering schemes to assign numbers to legal matters. Arrange cases via customizable labels and tags. 
  • Task Distribution: Break down complex tasks into sub-tasks, delegate them to other staff members and establish realistic deadlines. Set up trigger-based due dates, start dates and automated email notifications for upcoming tasks. 
    • Task Creation: Design recurring tasks programmed to repeat daily, monthly, annually or periodically. Create private tasks and tasks independent of legal matters. Add multiple team members to a single task and attach notes for future reference. 
  • Time and Expense Tracking: Account for all of the firm’s time and expenses. Directly create invoices from activities and generate UTBMS and LEDES billing codes.  
  • Billing: Supports both flat fee billing, split billing and contingency billing. Get notifications when a client’s retainer balance falls below the minimum amount. Email all clients with open invoices in bulk. Round off time entries and apply default billing rates to all activity items or apply custom rates on time. 
    • Invoicing: Prepare invoices en masse. Use different templates to create invoices for varied situations. Print, download, delete and process multiple invoices at once. Firms can opt to apply available retainer and trust account funds to invoices automatically. 
  • Legal Documentation: Leverage the workflow automation tool to quickly create documents from built-in templates. Store an unlimited number of documents in default folders sorted by practice areas. Create documents for specific contacts within merged fields. Petition clients for particular files with purpose-built request forms. 
  • Integration: Integrate with Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and OneDrive to simply drag and drop documents from cloud storage. The Quickbooks integration automatically synchronizes accounting data from clients, invoices and payments. Email and calendar integrations include Google, Office 365 and Outlook. Additional integrations include Zapier, Zoom, LawPay and Exchange. 
  • Client Intake: Streamline the client intake process with preconfigured online intake forms. Use the form builder to create multi-step complex forms based on conditional logic and triggers. Embed online intake forms into the firm’s website to capture leads effectively. Potential clients can save their progress on the form and complete it later. 
  • Electronic Signatures: Accept electronic signatures on agreements generated digitally. 
  • Client Relationship Management: Track lead sources, referrals and the pipeline value of potential clients. Automate follow-ups without utilizing code. Access a live feed of performance metrics on the configurable dashboard.  
  • Accounting: Manage multiple trust and operating accounts. Facilitate easy transfer of funds between accounts. Replenish trust accounts with expedited trust requests for additional funds. 
  • Payments: Generate and share secure online payment links for quicker payments. Accept credit cards for both trust and operating account payments. 
  • Workflow Automation: Design automated workflows with triggers based on rules, conditions and actions. Seamlessly automate anything from administrative activities and repetitive tasks to reminders and client engagement strategies. 
  • Legal Calendar: Always stay on top of deadlines, upcoming events, essential client touchpoints and hearing with the built-in legal calendar. 
  • Reporting and Analytics: Leverage a customizable dashboard and flexible visual formats to track real-time performance metrics. Anticipate the value of works in progress. Break down total outstanding revenue to identify invoices awaiting payment and overdue bills. 
    • Lead Reporting: Run built-in reports on lead trends, source, pipeline value, conversion rate and referrals. Identify the prominent reasons behind failed conversions and track the number of leads lost due to each cause. Drill deeper into conversion rate data to know the dollar value of conversions in every practice area. 
    • Custom Reports: Create tabular reports with custom parameters and fields, such as invoice history, matter balance summary, general client ledger, accounts receivable and more. 
  • Client Portal: Provide clients with a secure communication module. Lawyers and counsels can answer questions, share documents, request files, assign tasks to and schedule appointments with clients. 
  • Security: Safeguard client data with two-factor authentication. 
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Product Ranking

#46

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#77

among all
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Analyst Rating Summary

86
83
100
85
90
99
99
100
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Billing and Payments
Task Management
Time and Expense Management
Dashboard and Reporting
Matter/Case Management
Dashboard and Reporting
Matter/Case Management
Client and Contact Management
Mobile Capabilities
Billing and Payments

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

CARET Legal
Lawcus
+ Add Product + Add Product
Billing And Payments Calendaring And Legal Docketing Client And Contact Management Dashboard And Reporting Document Management Matter/Case Management Mobile Capabilities Task Management Time And Expense Management 100 90 99 65 92 67 100 100 85 99 100 49 100 89 82 79 0 25 50 75 100
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92%
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36%
50%
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50%
89%
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11%
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67%
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33%
89%
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11%
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83%
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17%
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

86%
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14%
71%
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29%
75%
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25%
83%
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17%

User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 345 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 103 reviews
94%
of users recommend this product

CARET Legal has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 94% when considering 345 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

96%
of users recommend this product

Lawcus has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 96% when considering 103 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

4.8 (114)
4.7 (9)
4.64 (119)
4.8 (47)
4.6 (112)
4.8 (47)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated CARET Legal and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Billing and Payments and Task Management. CARET Legal stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award
Billing and Payments Award
Task Management Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Lawcus and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Dashboard and Reporting and Matter/Case Management. Lawcus stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award
Dashboard and Reporting Award
Matter/Case Management Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Robust Legal Case Management: CARET Legal offers a comprehensive suite of tools for managing cases, including document management, calendaring, and time tracking, streamlining legal operations.
Excellent Collaboration Features: Its intuitive interface fosters collaboration among team members, allowing seamless sharing of documents, notes, and tasks, enhancing teamwork.
Customized Reporting: CARET Legal's customizable reporting capabilities provide tailored insights into case progress, resource allocation, and billing, enabling data-driven decision-making.
Automated Workflows: The software automates repetitive tasks such as document generation and approval processes, freeing up lawyers to focus on higher-value work.
Improved Efficiency and Productivity: By centralizing legal operations and automating tasks, CARET Legal helps firms improve efficiency, reduce turnaround times, and enhance productivity.
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Client Intake & CRM: Lawcus streamlines client intake with custom forms and automated workflows, ensuring a smooth onboarding experience and efficient data management.
Matter Management: The platform allows users to organize case files, deadlines, and tasks effectively, providing a centralized hub for all case-related information.
Time Tracking & Billing: Lawcus simplifies timekeeping with its intuitive interface and automated timers, making it easy to track billable hours accurately and generate invoices efficiently.
Communication Tools: Integrated email and secure messaging features facilitate seamless communication with clients and colleagues, keeping everyone informed and connected.
Reporting & Analytics: Lawcus provides insightful reports on key metrics such as billable hours, revenue, and client activity, enabling data-driven decision-making.
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Limited Customization: Many users find that CARET Legal's customization options are limited, making it difficult to tailor the software to their specific needs.
Steep Learning Curve: The software's complex interface and lack of user-friendly features can make it challenging for users to navigate and use effectively.
Expensive: CARET Legal's pricing model is often seen as expensive, especially for small to medium-sized law firms with limited budgets.
Integration Issues: Users have reported difficulties integrating CARET Legal with other software applications, leading to workflow disruptions and data management challenges.
Limited Support: Some users have experienced slow response times and inadequate support from CARET Legal's customer service team, leading to frustration and delays in resolving issues.
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Limited Customization: Lawcus offers limited options for customizing workflows, which can be frustrating for firms with unique processes or those requiring a high degree of tailoring. For example, automating specific document generation or client intake procedures may not be possible without extensive workarounds.
Learning Curve: The software's interface, while generally considered user-friendly, can present a learning curve for new users due to its extensive features and functionalities. Navigating through the various modules and understanding the intricacies of task management or billing procedures may require additional time and training.
Integrations: While Lawcus integrates with several popular applications, the range of available integrations may not be as extensive as some competitors. This can limit connectivity with existing tools used by law firms, potentially requiring manual data transfer or additional subscription costs for third-party integration platforms.
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CARET Legal has garnered significant user praise over the past year, with reviewers consistently highlighting its strengths in legal research and document automation. One user remarked that CARET Legal's "research tools are top-notch, making it easy to find relevant case law and statutes." Another reviewer lauded its "intuitive document automation features, which have saved me countless hours drafting contracts and pleadings." Compared to similar products, CARET Legal stands out for its user-friendly interface, comprehensive research capabilities, and robust automation tools. Users have noted that its "clean and organized interface makes it a breeze to navigate," while its "deep integration with legal databases provides access to a wealth of information." The software's ability to automate repetitive tasks has also been a major differentiator, with one reviewer stating that "CARET Legal has streamlined my workflow, freeing up more time for high-value tasks." In summary, CARET Legal is highly recommended for legal professionals seeking a comprehensive and user-friendly legal software solution. Its strengths in research, document automation, and user experience make it an ideal choice for lawyers, paralegals, and legal teams looking to enhance their productivity and efficiency.

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Lawcus has carved out a niche for itself in the legal tech space, attracting a loyal following of users who appreciate its unique blend of features and affordability. Reviewers frequently highlight the platform's intuitive interface and user-friendly design, making it easy for legal professionals to adopt and integrate into their workflows. The customizability of intake forms, automated workflows, and client portals is a significant advantage, allowing firms to tailor the software to their specific needs and processes. Lawcus's competitive pricing structure, especially compared to industry giants like Clio and MyCase, makes it an attractive option for solo practitioners and small to medium-sized law firms seeking a cost-effective solution without compromising functionality. While Lawcus receives praise for its core features and ease of use, some users note areas for improvement. The mobile app's functionality is sometimes seen as lagging behind the desktop version, and integrations with third-party applications could be more extensive. Additionally, while the customer support is generally responsive, some users desire more comprehensive documentation and resources for troubleshooting and self-help. Despite these limitations, Lawcus remains a compelling choice for legal professionals who prioritize a user-friendly interface, customizable workflows, and competitive pricing. Its focus on automation and client communication tools makes it particularly well-suited for firms looking to streamline their operations and enhance client satisfaction.

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Screenshots

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Head-to-Head Comparison

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